A little later than 14.00. The main topic of the these speeches: “Resources as agents of change”

María Laura Santillán - Journalist and TV Presenter- introduces the topic and introduced the invited people giving the next speeches.  What are the resources we have in the region of South America? How can we stimulate them? What is the role of the state when we talk about resources, and what changes need to be done to improve the recent situation. From my point of view, most of these questions, María Laura left open to be answered by the speakers, stayed unanswered.  Nevertheless the speeches were interesting.

José Lino Salvador Barañao - Minister of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, Argentina

The common slides on how energy consumption per person grew, and will grow, were the beginning of José’s Speech. Followed by numbers of the global and regional amount of resources compared to the demand and future tendencies how this will cause problems. The thematic of renewable energy has been handled quite short, saying that until now, it has not been developed anything that could substitute the energy sources oil, gas, and coal. Honestly, personally I was missing here the illustration of the importance of the big goals. Although Argentina has natural resources and therefore potential it can use and has to improve its market and logistic in this segment, I was missing a certain encouragement to look further and at least not ignore the topic of renewable energy. Didn’t we just here in other speeches something about big visions, and long term thinking?

Aníbal Borderes - President, Toyota Argentina

-Human capital is the only resource which we have to develop and cannot buy-

Concentrating on Human capital can bring success to a company. The key to success in Aníbal’s opinion is, always respect the employees, to be passionate about and consistent with the strategy used in a firm, and believe in what you do. He illustrated this by talking about how a Japanese company has to be very respectful with its human capital in subsidies in other countries. In the selection of human capital he recommends to concentrate on the selection on the capacity and character of the people and to invest highly in the training of the employees inside the company. Again he illustrated it with the case of Toyota, saying that, when they came to Argentina, they did not take employees from the automotive industry but selected “good” people and then trained them. Again I was hoping for more information and less marketing of the firm, although he assured that doing this was not his attention.

Time: 10.30 - After the opening we started right away with the speeches of very interesting people.  José Luis Roces - Provost, ITBA – introduced everyone before them stating their presentation and gave a short overview of their curriculums. The main topic of the speeches was “Institutions, vision & leadership: basis for change”. And I personally appreciate this topic, since from my heart I feel that this is the basis to start the improvement of Argentina.

Gabriela Michetti - Vice-Mayor, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires,

Institutions- Gabriela points out that it urges Argentina to improve and strengthen them.

She reminds us that until now, Argentina unfortunately failed in taking its opportunities every single time it had the chance.  To not commit this error in the future she points out that in order to improve institutions the attention has to be on the members of the institutions, since the people itself are the most important factor. Including her, she says, people tend to live self-centered and while striving for success and improvement they do not see themselves part of a society or institution, but isolate themselves. Meaning, one person’s improvement is another one’s harm. Therefore the institution in a whole cannot improve, as people do not work together, but against each other. She reminds us that the goal and the only way to reach our personal dream, is to make it come true with taking into account the other people in an institution or in the society. To start with the improvement in Argentina, she remarks, that the change has to start in small communities, where personal relationships and  enthusiastic work can be established and therefore common goal be generated and realized with a better performance. In this way, she states, Argentina can overcome the mistrust in political and economic institutions and improve transparency and use its potential for a better future. However until the people do not understand that the change will be a middle to long term process and stop frustrating themselves with the recent state of being, they will not have the power to put a new vision in practice. She as well addresses the leaders of the institutions that they take as well the actions to unblock the existing skepticism and mistrust.
She gives hope by assuring that Argentina has a lot in favor to use its potential and has definitely the chance to improve.

Víctor Valle - Finance Director Latin America, Google Inc.

He started by showing us an impressive video about Google’s development. Unfortunately this was for me the most exiting part. Afterwards he talked about how the company developed and about the first big vision of the founders, which was to connect people and their information around the world. Quite a big  challenge and almost impossible to fulfill, but inspiring to all of us to see that such complex, intangible ideas, can be realized and become something that powerful and successful.  
He stressed out that Google is and was not a conventional company, and does not have the aim to become conventional. As a future mission the founders have in mind to achieve a goal which cannot even be achieved in their lifetime but will take approximately 300 years. With the success story of Google Victor Valle encourages us to “think big” and have long-term goals, and with the role model of Google he reminds us of the importance of using success as well to work with a high standard of ethics and with this improve the future not only inside the company but as well in the society.
He encourages us with the statement, that if we have a strong dream, and if we are imagining the dream and show will to realize it, the result can only be good. In his speech I hear the same essential word: “Trust”, but this time directed to us. We have to trust our ideas, and our power to realize them. I can only agree people.

Peter Goosen - Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa in Argentina

I like a lot Peter Gossen’s speech. Without linking explicitly the case of South Africa to Argentina, his message was clear and encouraging. He explained with the most essential information the history of the change in South Africa before, during and after 1994, the transformation of a system of discrimination and separation to a democratic country and how the political and economical and social changes took place step by step. The vision to change the country’s attitude to succeed in building a society which worked for the benefit for the greater good and actually with this even draws own benefit out of this new attitude.  
He stressed out that the negotiations were a long hard process. They occurred transparently to everybody, so the whole country good observe the development of the negotiation and discussions - no one excluded.
Concluding: The was a need for change; a big vision; a long process, where some needed to give up power to but in the end gained as well. South Africa still suffers with a huge unemployment, because of the change, but it is still a process, but they have come a long way. I think linking it explicitly to Argentina’s case is unnecessary, the message is clear.